Grizzly 24" drum sander #1: Grizzly G1066 drum sander rebuild

So I got a 24” grizzly drum sander recently that was in working condition (sort of) but needed some parts replaced and needed a lot of tinkering! So i thought i would share some pics of the journey. this is not the exact one (i dont know what happened to the pic i took), but to give you idea picture this in much worse shape!I am not the best at remembering to take pics of everything so I will explain what I had to do. The back drum had felt well pieces of felt on it so I cleaned up the drums (laquer thinner worked well to clean off the adhesive from the felt). I completely disassembled the sander and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the heck out of it. there was sawdust probably 10 years old caked on the sucker. made an inventory of what i thought needed to be replaced and ordered from grizzly. (I am amazed they have not changed the design of this machine in a very long time). I repainted all the sheet metal parts. and reassembled with the replacement parts. so here are some pics…

once I removed the sheet metal

I decided to repaint the sheet metal parts as there was a decent amount of chips and some rust developing. so here they are primed.

I know some of you hardcore grizzly guys will get upset I didnt use Grizzly Green but I went with a dark metalic gray.

And it was finally comming together…

So parts I replaced:roller springsfeltclipsv-beltscouple of the drum bearingselectrical cordconveyor board

The motors seem to be running strong still but the conveyor belt has seen better days, starting frey on one side mainly cause it looks like it was run out of alignment for a long time. I got it alligned but we’ll see how long it stays that way. Just finished and unfortunately havent got a chance to use for a couple reasons…my DC died looking at getting a new one and grizzly sent wrong clips. so almost there. From what I’ve read there are mixed reviews of this sander, but for the price I got it for compared to the near $1600 new price shipped from grizzly i couldnt resist. Once i get some hours on it Ill give my opinion of it. Also im sure someone will suggest or ask why I didnt convert to hook and loop and my reasoning is the guy i bought it from threw in a good amount of paper and at around $50 a roll figured i better burn through that first. Well there you have it, let me know what you think or better yet if you own one by all means please leave me any tips on getting this beast running like…well like a well trained beast i guess lol!

Sweet rebuild. I have the same sander. I found it on craigslist and could not resist. Before I got the big grizzly the only drum sander I had used was a laguna 16-32 that I also found on CL.The grizzly is a BEAST compared to the laguna. With 5hp how could it not be.

As you have probably noticed the conveyor belt and drum spin in the same direction, be aware of this. The rubber rollers may have to be adjusted to add more pressure to keep this sander from being a pitching machine.

I see that you bought new felt. Could you not lower the back drum enough to do without it. It is easy to adjust the height of the drums if you find they are not parallel to the table.

I had to adjust mine to the be parallel with the table and to lower the back drum when I converted to hook and loop.

Fejeran. If you have it on and adjusted it will probably help keep the sandpaper from loading up. I ran mine briefly with standard paper and then took the top off to check how hot the paper was. The front drum’s paper was fairly hot while the back drum’s paper was not.

What is nice about the hook and loop is how cool it keeps the paper. The paper lasts longer, and does not burn the wood or load.

I had the Delta 18-36 and got rid of it because it left horrible streaks in the wood. I did a production run of 75 cutting boards and no matter how much I tinkered with the setup they all ended up with deep lines that I had to sand down with my ROS. Plus it was almost impossible to use any grit finer than 120.

So far it has been running pretty well, I will say that it is not for every project, I have been getting the horrible streaks you speak of. and most of the time i can get them out with the ROS but sometimes especially on endgrain it seems if i can never sand them down far enough to get rid of them. It is what it is. It is a workhorse though, with the 5hp motor it hasnt ever bogged down on me. The only problem with the open enders is that there open enders. Ive heard a lot of comlpaints about uneveness due to flexing. But the oscillating feature may be worth it. Hope that helps a little.

Forgot to mention this sander is very primitive in my opinion, there are no bells and whistles. The biggest pain in to butt is the lifting and lowering mechanism, it takes some time to get a feel for it. Also changing the paper is not fun. I figured out a system with some clamps to where i can do it myself but it is not quick process. Best option for tape is doublesided carpet tape then that packing tape with the threads in it on top. You must have a decent dust collector this thing eats wood for breakfast. And this things weighs a toon and over 400 lbs. if i remember right.